Poppy and Millie are two of Mandurah's 22 story dogs that visit local schools, helping children enjoy reading.
The program has just commenced for 2019 at Foundation Christian College, with students attending weekly story-reading sessions with the canine duo.
Head of teaching and learning Jo Doogan said Foundation Christian College is in its third year with story dogs and the program helps children develop confidence when reading and boosts their self-esteem.
"Story dogs handlers are volunteers trained to teach emergent readers, that is students in year 2," she said.
"This is a crucial time in students' development where they are expanding their vocabulary, reading to learn new information and aiming for fluency.
"Reading aloud helps students learn how to use language to make sense of the world. It improves their information processing skills, vocabulary and comprehension. We have extended the program to include students right through to our secondary school also."
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Year 4 student Cooper Parkey is one of the success stories of the program.
"Cooper started in year 2 and not only developed a love for reading but is also still improving, and we decided he should continue to be part of the story dogs program, much to the envy of his year 4 classmates," Mrs Doogan said.
Cooper's mother Chelsea Parkey said her son's reading improved by 10 levels in his first few months.
"His progress was not just in reading levels, but his self-esteem improved and he now loves to read," she said.
"He reads with more confidence, and having surpassed the reading levels used to assess reading fluency and comprehension at school he is now onto novels."
Mrs Doogan said the story dogs handlers had expressed their delight in attending sessions at the college.
"On several occasions they have mentioned how much they love visiting our school, because of the inclusive environment we have created, where they see that every child is cared for," she said.
The mission behind story dogs is to make reading fun for children, so they become confident lifelong readers.
The program is gaining popularity across the state. In 2017 there were 30 teams, now there are 60.
Michelle Cronin is from Foundation Christian College.
